Hi I am a NEWBIE. 10 day old driftwood pearl 2008 base. I have put on 550 miles... 47.2 on first 215 miles 50.2 on second 213 miles.. Intuitively I started to realize there was different way to drive this wonderful car.. Then I found this forum and started reading about P&G... Unfortunately I dont know any other prius owners, AS YET, so I wasn't really aware of all the fine points of driving this car. But now my friends leave me messages like..are you watching the road when you are driving or watching the meter... And how many miles did you get today!!! OK my 1st question.. now I am only getting 44 miles. Any suggestions.... I do a lot of Highway traveling..80 %.I am trying to end my day by taking the last 20 miles thru the streets getting off the higway,hoping to optimize my consumption. 2nd question Battery representation.. And I may be asking this wrong Blue Battery only shows 3/4 full is that normal in a new prius..should it be all blue bars.. And I admit I am not clearly understanding EXACTLY what I am looking at!! So PLEASE.. use very layman terms in your response, until I can catch up with you guys...HA!! thank you for all your help.. PS any suggestions what to read FIRST..so much info ..my head hurts Eve
1st?-You're doing fine and taking side roads at the end is a good idea and will help. 2nd?-Totally normal. Think of the battery as an energy buffer. The Prius is programmed to try to keep the car at 60% SOC (6 blue bars on the battery/Energy display). If you go down a long hill riding the regenerative brakes they want to leave some 'head room' to store extra charge...you'll peak out with 8 green bars on the display. If you're in very slow stop and go traffic the car will 'borrow' some energy from the battery and drain it down as low as about 40% SOC (1 pink bar). It is exeptionally rare to go outside of those ranges and in normal driving you'll rarely see more than 7 or fewer than 5 bars.
First reads... 1) Look at all the stickies here 2) Look at the Knowledge base section here...go to the bottom and select to show all dates. My MPG article is particularly helpful early on. 3) Go to John's Stuff - Toyota Prius and more and download his user's guide...print it, read it and keep it in the glove box.
Hi Eve, your Prius is performing just fine. Just drive the car and enjoy saving gas everyday. The Blue bars in your battery is normal. Almost always, your battery bars will go back to all green after a few miles of driving. Since you really don't do a lot of short trips with the Prius, you made a good choice in getting a Hybrid. Welcome to the forum.
I've had my 2008 Prius for 6 days now, and am loving it. But I have a similar concern... I find that I'm driving in a manner to CHARGE the battery, rather than USE the battery. Is that sensible? I notice that doing so has gotten me about 42mpg over the first 215 miles. Last night I decided to ignore the screen and drive using my old habits, and the battery ended up with purple bars (2), and my average mpg went down. I thought that was strange... I would have thought using more battery would get me better mpg. Thoughts/suggestions? Thanks! Jim
Jim, Just remember: there's no free lunch. If you use up the battery, it has to be recharged again (using the gas engine) and the recharging and storing of that energy is (relatively) inefficient. In most situations, the most efficient way to drive with the Prius is to use the battery as little as possible. Obviously, this is not practical in a lot of situations, but you should try to make it your general philosophy. Beyond that, basic gas saving strategies apply: drive more slowly on the highway, avoid jackrabbit starts, try to ease of the accelerator a little. One (more advanced) strategy that many do here is the so-called "pulse-and-glide." There are a bazillion posts on that here, so I won't go into detail (you can do a search), but the basic idea is to use the accelerator to briskly get up to speed ("pulse"), and then gently feather the accelerator to coast (glide). Also, check your tires (higher tire pressure generally gives better mileage, but a harsher ride) and your oil level (make sure it's not overfilled).
Driving technique short-path zen: - Accelerate briskly (this makes most efficient use of the engine) - Gliding (no arrows on the "Energy" display) is better than coasting - Coasting is better than braking - Braking is better than stopping The trick is in learning how to apply these principles. Don't use "B" in ordinary driving! It reduces MPGs. It's only there as an alternative to riding the brakes on a long downgrade. There's no city in the US where you need to use "B". Don't speed. As with any car MPGs fall off fast above 65 MPH or so. Check tire pressures at least monthly. Also, many people inflate the original tires to 42/40 PSI front/rear because it noticeably improves MPGs, but it does make the ride and handling harsher.
